I have to admit, for the past two weeks we haven't done alot of formal homeschooling, but learning has been accomplished, just not the formal kind.

The lad has worked on his keyboard... Children's Music Journey practicing through Adventus.

He's done some practical math via cooking/baking. Mom.. I want these candies. Sure as long as you can tell me what 1/3 of that is. ACK!!! But he worked it out...and got that immediate reward.

We've done nature walks looking for toad/frog spawn. It's been unsuccessful but we've seen lots of bugs and had fun exploring small waterways and learning about drainage ditches and catch basins.

We done some horticultural work as well. Planting gardens, going to the gardening centre and figuring out what flowers might go well with others. Learning how to do approximations using your body to figure out how high something might grow. Learning how to scare squirrels out the garden using plastic snakes. WHICH DOES work as long as you move the snakes around periodically. :)

He's sold vegetable plants: needing to do math, good communication, customer service, math (adding up what is owed, figuring out how much he needs to have to buy the produce desired), dealing with store clerks, and generally practicing all those niceties that produce good customer service.

Yesterday he went to an extension program at the University of Western Ontario where he built a lego robot with a team of boys. They had a battle and I'm told it was good. We won two and lost two. The worst part of it was they had to disassemble the robot when the day was done. It was a good 4.5 hour time of education for him.

Oh... we did play the birdcage press card game a few times. :) And we also played The Dangerous book for boys game more than once. And we've

Today the lad and I predominately worked on the Insects Lapbook from Hands of a Child. Our main focus was on vocab and the orders of insects. I used the vocab words to show my son how if you know parts of the word you can often figure out the whole word EVEN IF it's a great big long word. :) For instance Carnivore...starts with a word the lad knows well. And it ends with a bossy R..... so Car ?? or... so play around with it and soon he said CARNIVORE! Precisely lad. :) He was happy...he figured it out. Just ways to build his confidence.

He also worked on his Adventus. The goal was to have him only do a practice session but ...well...the lad fights against that. He wants to keep doing something new. So...I looked up some music books I had and said OKAY...I have something that you can practice WHILE you do the "new" using Children's Music Journey 2 by Adventus.

ACK MOM!!! This is too hard, I don't like it.Well...it gives you something to work on then doesn't it?and look....You CAN do this too. :)

So I showed him that he could. Well...he got one page down, but then he let his "ackiness" get in the way and didn't really try for the second. But... He'll practice it daily until he has it. Good to challenge a lad a bit.

We called it a day after that since he's fighting a cold and was getting too... hmm.. "techy" for anything good to come of it.

Today we started a new review from Christianity Cove. It's a lesson the Lord's Prayer. To that end we listened to this rendition of the Lord's Prayer.

We also talked about how a balloon can show how our prayers go up to God and attempted to make a scroll. We obviously fail at following directions as this didn't go over too well. But the whole prayer is a balloon and incense is like a sweet smell to God that the lad could understand. :)

The lad worked on his Adventus Music program this morning. He's getting to harder lessons now so needs to practice more and is fighting that. It's a change in routine and such things are often difficult to master. :)

I got him out on his bike because I want him biking decently well before we go on vacation this year as he's outgrown the trail-along bike.

Then we worked on Joyce Herzog Scaredy Cat reading system. He worked on mirror words, finding commonality in words and then figuring out how to say them and then to come up with new words with the same sounds in them. Then he took a speed drill. he completed all the words in 3.20.1. We'll do it again in a couple of days and see how he does with pronunciation of that list of words. He's starting to get it though he's easily "ACK!!! I can't do this mom". And I just need to continue to remind him that he can do it, he just needs to slow down and think.

He managed to complete a whole sheet of math facts this morning in 2 minutes. All correct and complete. earned one free dig in his treasure box for doing so. "Mom.. I worked HARD at that today". :) WOOT WOOT! We have improvement. Really like being able to use the sheets from Softschools.com.

This past Saturday I went to the homeschooling conference put on by KWCHEA. it's the biggest quite local homeschool conference and reasonable in price so attending is something I do once a year.

While there I attend seminars. Went to two, plus attempted a third. One of the ones I went to was called math and art. It was fascinating. I really enjoyed it came away with good ideas about how to do art with my seven year old and math at the same time.

As I was browsing the books (as that's a big part of the day) I came away with two thoughts.

1. Some companies seem determined to nickel and dime you for everything. They charge you the teachers text, the student text, the additional worksheet text, then the exams text, and then separately from that... the answer code. Makes me NOT want to do business with those companies. I'm sure there are good reasons for it, but I find it incredibly irritating....as you need to figure out exactly what you need with the hold over your head of "just what if you need it" or ACK...what if I forget something important.

2. some books are VERY good for inspiration.

I saw a book called speed math or some such. It was for drilling math facts. The book well, cost more than what I'm willing to pay but it gave me the idea for helping the lad learn his math facts. he doesn't want to do flashcards, so I'll get him to practice his math by doing a worksheet everyday. I went to Softschools.com for some help in printing off sheets. I was able to put an upper and lower limit on the numbers I want used and then I printed off the sheet. Gave the lad two minutes to get the sheet done. Once he's getting a whole sheet done in two minutes then I'll give him 1 minutes 45 seconds to get it done. And eventually get it down to 1.5 minutes which would be 3 seconds per question which is what every program I've seen uses as a goal.

Other work done today

We did some reading - George Brown class clown, a bird book and our devotional time. We didn't have time to read the paper together today.We did adventus - he continues to improve in his musical understanding, today he learned more about how notes are different lengths and they are introducing what those notes are called, target the question - today's challenge really made him have to play attention and think his way through the problems. and Tutorsoft math -. The lad was working on learning shortcuts in multiplication today. He found it a bit of a challenge but we'll continue to work on it.

we have graduated from CMJ1 and have moved onto CMJ2. (this in adventus)

Today was a MUCH easier day than yesterday.

We did our adventus, looked through an offer from Educents ....regarding Samson's Classroom (we did the demo and that worked well for our reading, phonics, and sight words). Looks like it will be a good fit for the lad and progressive so that will help I think. With my coupon turns it into a $20 purchase for the year. So that makes it worthwhile to me.

Did a little bit of review of what we learned yesterday with Great Empires. Did our Target the Question....good practice today for rounding up to 10 and figuring out how

I wanted to do some math with the lad but he was VERY much not interested in doing A+Tutorsoft today so I said okay... we can do math from our upstairs book.... We worked on Area and Perimeter today. That lead to fun ...oh my.. we had FUN with this. Doing the work was boring (said the lad) but learning what it actually met... My son is into angry birds so putting into angry bird speak.....The bad piggies set up their area that they want to hide in. The birds are wanting to breach their perimeter in order to get into the area that the pigs are hiding in.

using geometric shapes to build bad piggies.

the helmeted pigs have chosen an area to defend and have marked off their perimeter...can headband pig outsmart them???

Later on we went for a walk, on our walk we looked for places that it would be easy to set up a defense area. One of our balloon pigs came along for the walk as well and she kept on pointing out....see...I could hide there and see where I could form a perimeter?? SEE??? (she was VERY talkative). :) It's just very nice to have fun and learn at the same time. Sometime I'll have to set up a capture the flag game with the lad. :) It will be just another way to help reinforce how math concepts work in real life situations. :)

Before I get to our magnets are fun aspect of learning today, let me talk about some of the other things we did today first.

1. read the paper. No...didn't read the whole paper with a seven year lad but I read headlines and the comics and then we talked about them. Whatever grabbed his interest or mine. This leads to some interesting discussions at times.

Garfield's comic this morning had Jon reading from the paper "If space aliens were to invade earth, they could take the form of animals"Jon stares at Garfield"do you come in peace"Garfield"take me to your refrigerator".

We took a side trail to do some air pressure experiments with balloons.

The lad's been making balloon pigs and said MOM....do you think we can make a pig inside another balloon. I told him TRY. He tried, he failed and so he asked his mom to help. I blew and blew and about gave myself a heartattack (not really)....but that was tough going. BUT finally we got the balloon to expand...and it popped out of the other balloon mostly...can you see how we have a covered expansion? Fascinated the lad but we couldn't get it to duplicate with another balloon (and I ran out of breath).

Magnets

We decided to take a break from learning about motion to learn about magnets this morning. We are doing this for our review for SuperCharged Science.

To that end we made magnet dance, we made a snake that could wag it's tail, learned we have some super strong magnets that will pinch your skin if you aren't careful, had fun with iron filings - scaring them and calming them down, and just generally were well amused by how magnets work. We are hoping to see how to do electomagnets works as well...but not today. :)

Do forgive the blurriness that lad tried mightily.

magnets work even through a seven year olds hand

This was an unexpected result. The lad wanted to see if he could make the paperclips move the iron filings when the magnets literally jumped out of his hands and grabbed the iron filings through the paper.

The product and company

The company is Adventus.The product is MusIQ Homeschool.Good for ages 4-18. The seven-year curriculum includes 20+ levels for beginner to advanced intermediate piano students. The Lesson Plans include detailed lesson objectives, activity sheets, quizzes and assessments plus hundreds of helpful tips from experienced educators.This is a review for the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

How it works

You need a MIDI capable keyboard. You need a cable to attach it to your computer. Easy peasy all that. If you don't have a keyboard you can order it from the company.

NOW.. FIRST turn on your keyboard.Then start the Children MusIQ Journey. There is a few set up details you need to manage when you first run the program, but once set, it is set. I learned it is important to have your keyboard turned on before you start the program.

Watch the video and do the lesson.Play the games. Do the composing if you'd like. Listen to the music selections again.Do the printed lesson if it fits (and if you purchased it, it is NOT an integral part to the program).Do your practice when it suits. We did this usually before or immediately after a lesson. Depended on the lad's confidence level for the particular level.

The lad is seven. I had thought to start him on level 2 but it started with the presupposition of knowledge base. Knowing my lad needed to build confidence I thought I'd start at the lower level and let him build that confidence (and just skip doing things like colouring pages). It turned out to be an excellent decision. The lessons are progressive and show a logical progression. At times they move too slowly for the lad's liking, and at those times I just (unknown by him) do the next lesson and then he's all happy again.

I can do this Mom!

The lad's opinion

So son...what do you think of the music program?

GOOD!

What else?

It's a nice one.

Do you like doing it?

yes

hand outs that make sense

Mom's Opinion

Seeing my son, who is VERY particular about his music (he likes jazz) and dislikes mom playing the keyboard or singing (and is vocal in that dislike), actually coming down to play on the keyboard himself, and making up little songs on his own.... ah...it just tickles my heart.

I had need to email the company with an issue we were having and they were very quick in getting back to me and providing the needed assistance. Good customer support is important to have.

the practice teacher

Pricing

There are a couple of different ways of ordering this program. You can do a monthly subscription: Online homeschool For $10.95/month OR you can order the complete MusIQ homeschool bundle with has all the programs, lesson plans and a MIDI keyboard for $499.95.

Children's Music Journey Vol. 1 , Vol. 2 and Vol. 3.

Piano Suite Premier

Ear Training Coach 1&2

Ear Training Coach 3&4

If you don't need to get the midi keyboard you can just get theChildren’s Music Journey Volume 1, 2, and 3 for $69.95 EACH. Included in each volume are the computer software and lesson plans.

Children’s Music Journey Bundle includes lesson book and MIDI keyboard - $309.95Year One Quick Start Bundle includes Children’s Music Journey Vol. 1, lesson book and MIDI keyboard- $199.95Consider this: You get the complete package of seven years’ worth of lessons. All for one set price. No increase in inflation, just the program with the option of repeating lessons, more practice and not having to leave the house for lessons and having to force practice times...

The program can be easily used for more than one child, or even yourself if you are wanting to learn music yourself.For me: the cheapest I can find for lessons locally is $10/lesson/week. Driving about 25 minutes once a week. Over the course of year that will cost me at least $520 plus gas. This program is a big savings for me. Imagine now if you have more than one child? Savings would add up nicely eh? We get out of the house enough so not having to go out for yet another thing is a bonus.

More Reading

Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew OR click on the image below.

Disclaimer

I've been reading lately about struggling homeschool moms (for the most part). Some are dads, but most are moms. Struggling with children not wanting to learn, struggling managing their time, their households, their...well...most anything. Raising and educating a family keeps a body busy. When I read things like this I need to make sure I keep my focus where it aught to be....doing what works for OUR family. Not getting caught up in the "keep up with xyz family". They are their own family, this one is MINE.

So today we started off the day doing dishes... I know... totally exciting isn't it? I had a lad wanting very much to play the new levels of bad piggies. What? Let my boy play Bad Piggies rather than do "real homeschool?" Bad Piggies IS real homeschool. It's problem solving, working out engineering problems, paying attention to details and all sorts of things. He has to work hard to figure out some of those levels and he's better at it than I am. He was feeling a ... what's the word I want...unsure if he had his focus in the right spot and came in asking "mom, is it okay if I play Bad Piggies? Am I learning things?" I told him yes, you are...but what do YOU think you are learning?

His response1. I have to keep trying and trying mom.2. I have to figure out why it's not working and sometimes I just don't know. I have to ask Dad for help! Some of those levels are VERY hard mom.

For a seven year old, I thought those good answers.

Dishes done, we had breakfast, and looked at the paper

From the News

Part of the headline had this "the N-word".

I said to the lad...The N word? Do you know any N words?Does Angry birds or Bad Piggies have any N words?

Led to a whole discussion on N-words which is good practice for a beginnging reader....this lead to him wanting to know what the N-word in the paper was and we talked about how one councillor used a word beginning with N that made people get all upset with her. I said that sometimes too people make too big of a deal over something and need to just let it go.

Normal things

We read and discussed a story in his primer that we are reading. Todays story was about a man who trusted a friend to tell the truth and what happened when the friend (who said he was ever so brave) was proven to not be ever so brave and what the result of that was.

TWO lessons done with our music program Adventus. My but the lad enjoys this on-line music course. :) I don't get arguments about doing it and he'll often ask to do another lesson. So happy I get to review this program for the Schoolhouse Review Crew. The lad has so much fun with it though today he was disappointed...they took away the story time...and that was just another bust a gut laughing time for him. :) Maybe they will bring it back....

After this we did our Essentials in Writing Lessons. This lesson caused some momentary confusion in the lad because he was rushing his learning. Once he slowed down it went quite smoothly. He had to do some thinking which, of course, is generally a good thing to do.

Lunch and then upstairs to do some book work. Things kinda broke down here. The lad and I worked through telling time several times over the past while but he's having some difficulty retaining this information. So I have a clock poster from the dollarama that I just wrote on all the five minute increments. Then a lightbulb went off. :) AH>> "okay.. I understand mom. BUT MOM>>> Why can't people always just say 3:15 and not a quarter past 3? Why can't they just do it all the same?!??!" He's much aggrieved by this.

How would YOU answer this??

Canada Study - First Nations

Doing this activity resulted in the lad saying "mom, this was good homeschooling today".

The lad loves angry birds, I love teaching him. It doesn't matter to me if I use angry birds to instill a love of learning in him. So our dogs are really yellow angry birds pulling a sled. Does he know that dogs helped the Inuit get around more quickly than walking? YEP! We built fish (For the birds to tease the pigs with)...but the main diet of the Inuit consisted of fish, whale and such like. Does the lad know this? For sure! :) Same with the igloo, the cache, and such...angry bird theme-ing it just helps the knowledge be retained and he has retained alot. It's very cool to see some of this stuff sink into his brain.

We are doing Canada much slower than I anticipated..but that's okay... we have a whole life ahead of us. :)

Tomorrow we paint! :)

Bannock - recipe

Came across (in our Inuit studies) this recipe for Bannock. So we made it for supper.

Ingredients

4 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

5 teaspoons baking powder

1½ cups water

Directions

Mix ingredients together to form a stiff dough.

Sprinkle flour on a clean work surface. With very clean hands, knead the dough. Dust hands and dough with flour if the dough is sticky.

Form in a round loaf about 1 inch high. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 350° F for 30 minutes.

Serve warm with butter and jam or honey.

We served it with Honey. The lad very much enjoyed it. It was fairly decent, not as good as the fried bread though....not sure which we'll make for the project fair.....

Before I forget, the lad's crystals continue to growThis was a dollar store purchase...thus far...worth the $1.25 spent on it. :)We added to the experiment a bit. The rocks on the right hand side, tray, green stuff came with the kit. The popsicle stick and the large rock came from the lad. He wanted to know if the rocks used made any difference and what would happen if you left the popsicle stick in it.

We started off our actual homsechooling day doing language arts. The lad had already spent a good portion of the morning learning about making his own film. He's seven and is just starting to learn about not showing EVERYTHING, that you can stop, set up the shot and then go on from there. He's learning to be aware of back ground noise. To zoom and out and such like. It's a work in progress.

Language arts: We read a story from our reader and then I asked the lad a variety of questions. What would you do in that situation? What do you think of what the boys did? Are you glad they figured out how to get help? Do you think what they did could really have worked?

Then we went to Adventus. The lad LOVED this lesson (did it three times) and wanted to go on to another lesson but I said let's do our question from Target the Question first as well as our Essentials in Writing lesson. That of course led to our doing our first DO IT multiplication question through A+Tutorsoft interactive math. He did well with this once he figured out exactly what they were asking from him. It's hard to focus on things today.

So once we were done all that I said... GO PLAY for while. We both need to let our brains chill out. :)

We're going to make some indian bread this afternoon and do some more picture making for our First Nations work. Also we plan to build a paper castle. We're using these plans from My Little House.

We started off our day with Adventus. Today's lesson was a bit of a challenge for him to figure it out. We needed to work together to bring understanding. We did our question from Target the Question. We did another lesson from A+Tutorsoft math, we did the starter lesson for multiplication. I told him all he needed to do today was listen to it.

At the library we drew some more First Nation Lodges, find more First Nations recipes we can make at home, and work through immigration - when people came to Canada. Ended up working on the timeline for immigration to Canada. It needs some fine tuning yet. Had gym time with the Homeschool group.